Welcome to Professional and Technical Services (PTS) – experts in chemical disinfection for infection prevention. Our goal is to educate and provide you the latest resources related to cleaning and disinfection of environmental surfaces, medical devices and hands. As specialists in disinfectant chemistries, microbiology, environmental cleaning and disinfection, facility assessments and policy and procedure creation we are dedicated to helping any person or facility who uses chemical disinfectants.

Friday, May 24, 2019

Sunday marks the start of the annual
IPAC-Canada Conference.I’m
proud to say I’ve been part of the Scientific Committee and this year we’re
hosting a conjoint conference with IFIC (International Federation of Infection Control).Innovate, Integrate, Motivate is the theme
for the conference and with the topics and speakers that are lined up, I think
it’s fair to say that we’re touching upon how we can innovate and improve
infection control practices, how we can integrate new practices or ideas into
our programs and keep you motivated to want to continue pushing forward and
make infection prevention and control a concept not just within healthcare
facilities, but a household topic to boot!

If you’re not able to attend the conference
there are a couple of ways you can participate.

1. Follow the conference on
Twitter using #IFICIPAC2019.If there
is one thing I have learned over the years, is that you can feel like you’ve
attended a conference session by following along on Twitter.

a.ADAPTING
IPAC IN UNCONVENTIONAL SPACES will be
presented onMonday,
May 27th from 4pm to 5:30pm EST.This panel discussion will include discussions on Design Considerations,
Risks and Competing Priorities in Water Management and Emerging Risks in Water
in Healthcare.

b.Adult
Learning Styles will be presented on Tuesday,
May 28th from 10:50 – 11:50am EST.The speakers for this session will discuss how to apply adult learning principles
for effective teaching and the advantages, pitfalls, and lessons learned from high-tech
learning and teaching strategies.

Friday, May 17, 2019

If you’ve ever had a service related job, be it in a call centre or being a waitress or any IT department, you likely have “a story”
about a customer.Over the years, I’ve
had several.One of my favourites was a
gentleman from New York State.It was
spring time.He was getting ready to
launch his boat and he found a mouse nest.When he first launched into his story, he was so panicked I thought we were
dealing with an infestation and hundreds of nests and mouse poop as far as the
eye could see.I eventually teased out
the fact that we were dealing with a single nest, there were no mice around and
he had recently watched a TV program on zoonotic diseases that cause death and
was concerned he had caught Hantavirus.

Hantavirus can cause severe and sometimes fatal respiratory
disease in humans that is spread by several types of rodents.Thankfully, only a very few number of human
Hantavirus infection cases are reported each year.Deer mice in particular are known to carry
the virus and shed the virus through urine, saliva and poop.People can pick up the virus by breathing in
virus particles when cleaning up after the mice (e.g. sweeping up a nest or poop).You can also get infected if bitten or if you
touch broken skin with infected material.

Boatman, knowing he could get Hantavirus from cleaning up
after a mouse, was beyond agitated, as his boat was small, he had been cleaning
and sweeping with no PPE prior to finding the nest and was concerned he had
inhaled enough dust to get sick.I’m not
a medical doctor.I do not have the
credentials to diagnose people and certainly I’m not going to speculate with a
stranger over the phone.The best I can
do is help calm his fears by giving him information on how to clean up the mess
in a way that will limit transmission.

This weekend is a long weekend to celebrate Queen
Victoria's birthday.There will be a
lot of cottage openings and more than a few boat launches.If like me, you’re heading to cottage country,
here are a few tips if you come across a mouse nest or mouse poop.

1. Wear gloves.

2. Do not stir up dust by sweeping or vacuuming.

3. Spray a disinfectant onto the material and let
sit for the contact time as noted on the product label.

4. Use a paper towel to pick up the poop or other
material and dispose in the garbage.

5. Re-apply the disinfectant, again over the entire
area and ensure the contact time is met.

Luckily, Hantavirus is an enveloped virus and is easy to
kill when it comes to disinfectants.While
it can be frightening, coming across a nest and mouse poop, as long as you take
some simple precautions the risk of contracting Hantavirus is low.

Friday, May 10, 2019

There are advantages and disadvantages to
traveling and having a kid in competitive hockey. I’ve become a professional
packer. I get to see some pretty amazing places and meet even more amazing
people. The downside is that I use a lot of public washrooms.

Case in point, this week I spent several
nights in a hockey rink for my son’s tryouts. I’m part of a great group of hockey mom’s. We cheer when our son’s do well and cry when something goes wrong. Last
night we were huddled together over drinks cheering on our sons for their final
skate. As expected, after a drink or two, the “facilities” are often needed. The
washroom was surprisingly clean. There was nothing on the floor, the
countertops and sinks were clean and the mirrors sparkling. Then I went to use
the hand soap…

Did you know that refillable hand soap
containers have been linked to bacterial contamination? In fact there have been
a number of studies highlighting that up to 25% of refillable soap dispensers
in public washrooms were contaminated with bacteria. Even worse, a study
conducted by Montana State University found that not only was there bacterial
contamination in refillable soap dispensers, but that that these dispensers
also contained
bacterial biofilm! The researchers found that the biofilm bacteria was able
to attach to the inner dispenser surfaces. Furthermore, the cleaning and
disinfection protocol used to clean the dispensers demonstrated that even when
cleaning with highly concentrated disinfectants, the biofilm was not removed. They
had in fact adapted to live in the soap environment.

Another study using students and staff at a school as subjects, looked at the levels of
Gram-negative bacteria remaining on or transferred from hands after washing
with contaminated soap found in the refillable soap dispensers. As expected,
the levels of bacteria found on hands after washing with contaminated soap was
higher than if using uncontaminated soap and the “dirty soap contaminated
hands” were able to transfer more bacteria to a secondary surface.

Refilling
soap dispensers is a double edge sword. Buying in bulk can be cost effective
and reduces the amount of plastic and is better for the environment. Unfortunately,
refillable soap dispensers are hard to clean and prone to bacterial
contamination. What do you do with your hand soap at home? I used to buy in
bulk, but no more. While I’m using more plastic, I do look for soaps that are
environmentally friendly, packaging that contain recycled content and make sure
that I recycle my empty soap containers.

As I
head for yet another hockey tournament, you can be sure that I have a supply of
premoistened hand wipes and lots of alcohol hand sanitizer!

Bugging
Off!

Nicole

PS –
my son made the hockey team last night, but we shed lots of tears for our
friends that did not.

Friday, May 3, 2019

I’m a spring baby. In
fact, this is the eve of my birthday. Over the last several weeks I have talked about spring cleaning. Spring brings new growth, budding trees,
plant pollen and worms on sidewalks after a heavy rain. I hate worms. I can’t stand touching earth worms, in fact I can put a worm on a hook
using a stick and a rock. My dislike for
worms goes way back. As a child I had a
cat who spent as much time outdoors and indoors. He was an avid hunter. He ate what he caught and as a result he
would get tape worms. If you have never
seen a tapeworm segment, be thankful. I
have nightmares.My nightmares worsened
in university when my roommates, who happened to be in the same Zoology course
as me, thought it would be fun to place pieces of rubber bands cut in small
tape worm segments in my bed. I happened
to be coming back late on a Sunday night when they did it. I got into bed, I felt something odd. I whipped back the covers, flicked on my lamp
and nearly had a heart attack.For the
love of @#)$!I had tapeworm segments in
my bed! It took me a few moments to be
brave enough to touch them and realise they were elastic bands. At this point my “friends” were giggling so
much I realised I had been punked…

Laugh away. I can now. But why bring this rather embarrassing story
up?Well, dogs and humans can be
infected by a potentially deadly tapeworm that University of Guelph researchers
say is now in Southern Ontario. The
tapeworm, Echinococcus
multilocularis, wasn't thought to be present in Ontario until
five sick dogs from the west side of Lake Ontario were identified. We may not think of tapeworms as being a huge
concern, but this one is particularly nasty. It can cause disease of the liver and, if left untreated, can spread to
other organs and cause death in dogs and humans. An analysis of Canadian hospital discharge
data showed that between 2001 and 2014, 242 patients were treated for
echinococcosis, and while this may not be a huge number to everyone, it does highlight
the importance of this as a zoonotic disease.In fact, Ontario became the first province in Canada to make it
mandatory for physicians and veterinarians to report all human and animal cases
to local public health departments.

Humans are infected when they eat tapeworm eggs. This can
occur by eating foods such as vegetables, fruits or herbs, or drinking
contaminated water. The eggs can also stick to our hands when we pet an
infected dog or cat, when we handle a wild animal or its carcass, when we touch
contaminated soil or vegetation. We can
also pick it up via an uninfected pet that happens to have the eggs on their
fur. Do you have a dog that may roll in poop?

If you’re like me, you may have started
gardening. I’m not much of a gardener,
but I do try to get things in order as early as I can and we do have a
vegetable garden where yes, I eat what we have grown directly off the plant
after a quick wipe on my pants. I do not
have a dog and while we may have the occasional skunk or rabbit, we do not have
a yard where coyotes or foxes show up. I
suppose I can consider myself lucky. If
you have a dog, try to minimise their wandering and as with many infections,
hand hygiene is a key method to stop transmission. Be sure to wash your hands with soap and warm
water after handling dogs, before handling food and of course avoid ingestion
of food, water or soil contaminated with dog poop.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

There are some who really fancy a good
spring clean. Whether it’s purging your closets with clothes you no
longer wear, cleaning out the fridge of expired food or your freezers ancient
relics of freezer burned food, you will find that there is something cathartic
about cleaning and purging.

I suspect that many have not considered how
to clean and disinfect cold surfaces like the inside of a fridge, a freezer or
even a cryostat for example. Disinfection is all about contact
time - the length of time the surface MUST stay wet to achieve the
disinfection claims as noted on the product label.For some surfaces this can be
problematic.If the surface is hot, the
disinfectant is going to evaporate well before the contact time can be
achieved. Can you imagine how quick a hot surface will flash off the product if
an alcohol based product is used?

Cold or freezing surfaces pose an entirely
different issue. How do you keep a water-based product like a disinfectant from
freezing when it comes in contact with a surface that is below freezing?The truth is it’s hard, hence the topic of
this week’s blog.

Disinfectants can come in a number of
different formats such as Ready-To-Use (RTU) Liquids, Pre-Moistened Wipes and
Concentrates that require dilution prior to use. When dealing with cold
temperatures, part of the decision you need to make is how to avoid your liquid
disinfectant from freezing so that you can apply it to the surface you need to
clean and disinfect. In this case, your only option is the use of a concentrate.

Why you ask? Well, as the name implies RTU
Liquids or Pre-moistened wipes are products that are intended to be used as
they are manufactured and packaged. They have been tested and approved for use
by the EPA, Health Canada or any other regulatory body to be used at the
concentration stated on the bottle. Doing anything to an RTU or Wipe product,
such as the addition of another chemical will dilute the product and render it
ineffective.At the very least, you’ve
changed the concentration so that the disinfectant manufacturer will not be
able to provide any proof indicating the product will still be effective or
what the contact time would be.

Concentrates on the other hand need to be
diluted prior to use. This then allows you to add propylene glycol (PG) while
diluting (usually up to 10%). Similar to how we have a Summer Windshield Washer
Fluid and a Winter Windshield Fluid, propylene glycol is added to stop the
freezing. The importance of this however, is that you need to work with your
disinfectant manufacture to verify if they have conducted testing to ensure if
you add PG that the product will not be neutralized. You also do not
necessarily want to use winter windshield washer fluid as we found it can
impact the pH and efficacy of products!

If you’re looking at spring cleaning a few
of your hard to clean devices or machines, I hope you’ll contemplate how you
used your disinfectant so that you achieve the level of kill you need!

Bugging Off!

Nicole

PS – if you’re interested check out some of our past
blogs that talk about contact time such as: